Alexander HellenbergHughesCivil WarMarch 21, 2014Parallel Leaders Face a Single War for FreedomAbraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, born in central Kentucky within a year and within eighty-five miles of each on the other, they followed different paths to eminence. As different as their backgrounds, education, and experience were, both eventually turned to politics and wrestled with the issues of their time. The United States in which Lincoln and Davis grew up was a very raw, energetic and expanding world that brought with it the industrial and market revolution which, among other things, created a land of many opportunities. These opportunities were given to people who fought against the established order to protect their rights, and it was up to Lincoln and Davis to protect those rights, no matter how many battles were fought and no matter how much blood was shed. The United States, confined within modest and unchanged borders for a generation, would face its most intense war in five years. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis faced incomprehensible tactics led by their strongest military leaders, an economic failure challenged by slavery and religion, and their questionable differences that would forever change the history of America . When President Abraham Lincoln (1809 -1865) took office, he did not gain much respect from American citizens as a military leader. Lincoln exercised actions that brought his West Point generals into more aggressive territory. Although he did not have the military education or experience of his counterpart Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889), he continued his skills as a fearless leader by becoming a student of... middle of paper... ...both Lincoln that Davis were raised in a democratic atmosphere; Lincoln emerged as a Whig, Davis remained a Democrat. Both of their interests in public affairs were continually growing, before and until the end of the Civil War. As leaders of their respective peoples during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis faced similar problems and addressed similar issues. The solutions to their problems and the policies devised and followed by the two men were compounded by the actions of their generals and the crippling economies fighting for what was deemed right in America. In general, the ideas of Lincoln and Davis came from the same Anglo-American source; and both men's ideas often echoed those expressed by their common American ancestors and contemporaries. Those contemporaries are the founding fathers of the United States of America.